A short silence followed the Abbot’s pronouncement. Josh wondered what a Philosopher’s Stone was. He had some vague idea that it was related to medieval alchemy. Wasn’t it supposed to be a magical substance that turned lead into gold or something?

The young girl frowned.

“Abbot, who told you of my mission?”

The Abbot paused, surprised.

“Ah, forgive me if I have erred,” he said uncertainly, “But I heard the news from no less than two separate correspondents.”

The chaperone gave a delicate little snort of amusement, whereas the priest looked as if he had bitten into a lemon.

“It was meant to be a secret,” the girl said, shrilly.

“This is preposterous!” The priest stated, and added, “My lady, I will find out who has been so free with your business. ‘Tis outrageous for low-born vulgar folk to be gossiping about their betters!”

The chaperone sighed loudly, earning her a reproving glance from her noble charge.

“All this secrecy has been remarkably tiresome,” she said languidly. “I, for once, am relieved we can dispense with it. Perhaps when we get to the capital, my lady, there will be a crowd to cheer your triumph, and we might parade through the city. How marvellous that would be!”

“But grandmother said…” The girl began, and then stopped.

“Her Grace’s orders pre-supposed that our mission would be carried out discreetly,” the chaperone said carelessly. “I do not propose that we waste our time by wringing our hands over things we cannot change.” Now she smiled graciously at the Abbot, and then turned back to the girl. “So kind of the Abbot to pay his respects, my lady. Perhaps he might join us for dinner?”

The girl was caught off guard.

“I … well … yes…,” she said, and the chaperone clapped her hands.

“Splendid!” To the people seated on her left she said, “Do make space, my loves.”

The Abbot had been regarding the conversation with a pained look on his face, but now he hesitated, then bowed graciously to the young girl.

“You are kindness itself, my lady. I deeply apologise if I have caused you any awkwardness or concern.”

Once the party had shuffled to make room, and the Abbot had been seated in amongst the diners, only Josh was left standing in front of them.

“Now,” the chaperone said. “What is your purpose here, young man?”

And that was how Josh ended telling the story of the book moth haunt while the first course was served. He changed it so that he was fleeing from ordinary bandits, not scourge, and consequently became lost in a mysterious forest. He made the druid grove an abandoned manor house, and Queen Halina into a sorceress, the last scion of a noble family who had been poisoned by an ex-lover and rival.

He got carried away and described the moths in a little too much detail, to the extent that when he recounted the part where they had nearly smothered him, he was suddenly back there, in the shrine in the forest, covered in thousands of soft but lethal moth wings.

It was so vivid for a moment that he thought it was real.

When he came back to himself, it had only been a few moments, but his audience were beginning to give him puzzled looks. He took several deep breaths to calm himself, threw back another gulp of wine, and recounted how he had pretended to be the woman’s loyal servant. At the last minute she had believed him, and let him live.

When the bandits had captured him, he had saved himself by telling them there was treasure in the abandoned manor house, and luring them into the library just as the sun set for a second time, straight into the arms of the moth haunt. He ended the story with him fleeing into the woods while the abandoned manor lit the sky with flames.

By this point his audience were on their main course, while Josh was on his third cup of wine on an empty stomach, and seriously feeling the effects. As he made to leave, a servant—one belonging to the chaperone—approached him and handed him a small purse.

He was being tipped! Yes! He counted the coins surreptitiously under the table, while waiting for his own supper in the taproom, and discovered there were ten silver coins in it. That would keep him in style for a week!

This bard thing was really working out.

On top of that, the Abbot found him when he was finishing his dinner, and offered him a bed at the Priory, in compensation for losing his previous one to one of the noble party’s hangers on, which was a generous offer, considering it wasn’t the Abbot’s problem to fix in the first place. It also meant Josh didn’t have to sleep in the hayloft and, best of all, he might get a chance to check out the Priory’s library in the morning.

He retrieved his pack from the inn’s strongroom, and followed the Abbot out into the night air. He’d been given a pint of ale with his meal and, while he could walk in a straight line and talk coherently, he was still feeling the effects of the wine, although it had now reduced itself to a pleasant buzz and made him feel as if the whole world was his friend.

“You left the entire party speculating on the identity of the noblewoman the moth haunt was imitating,” the Abbot told him, as they strolled back towards the Priory.

“Ah, it wasn’t really a noblewoman,” Josh told him. “It thought it was Queen Halina.”

“Ah?” The Abbot said. “Yes, I see.”

“And I pretended to be Prince Rupern,” Josh found himself saying.

There was a pause.

“In that case, I congratulate you for not disclosing those details. I cannot think they would have gone down at all well with your audience.”

“That’s what I thought!” Josh said. He showed the Abbot the purse. “They gave me ten silvers!”

“It was a fine story,” the Abbot replied, and Josh could hear a glimmer of amusement in his voice.

At the Priory, he handed Josh off to a younger monk, who escorted him to a small room with a high, narrow window, a narrow bed with a thin mattress and a single blanket, and a small table with a jug full of water, a ewer, and a pamphlet lying on it. It wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the inn, but it was a whole lot better than a pallet in a hayloft, surrounded by the snoring shapes of other travellers.

Josh was feeling restless, but he didn’t feel able to concentrate well enough to practice his magic, or scribe spells. He reached for the pamphlet instead, and discovered that it was the Testament of the Paragon.

According to the pamphlet, the Paragon had originally been an ordinary mortal, but had ascended to semi-godhood as a result of his purity and wisdom. This had all happened hundreds of years ago, otherwise Josh would have suspected the Paragon of being an outlander. Although, come to think of it, the entity which had abducted all those people from Earth had been doing so for twenty years at least. And before outlanders came, there were legends of the Seven Heroes, who might also have come from Earth.

And then Josh thought, what about all the locals? They had Earth accents that weren’t all that dissimilar to British ones. They must have originally come from Earth too.

How long had this been going on?

In the back of his mind, Josh had imagined his journalist cousin Ben running around investigating Spiralia Online, and unearthing some massive conspiracy. Maybe this was a secret virtual reality project by a tech billionaire. Maybe there was an actual gateway to another dimension and it was being utilised by someone who wanted their own private fantasy world. But at each juncture the conspiracy seemed to grow until it was impossibly, world-changingly big, and had clearly been operating for decades. Now Josh hoped that Ben had had enough sense to realise he was out of his depth.

But when had Ben ever backed down from a challenge?

When Josh fell asleep, he had the sinkhole dream again, although this time it featured the Paragon beckoning him into the lightless depths. The Paragon looked just like the Guardian who had offered Josh the list of classes, a tall, shining but indistinct figure, who kept vanishing around corners just ahead of him. In the dream it seemed perfectly logical that there would be corridors and doors and rooms submerged at the bottom of the sinkhole, each one shadowy with threat, and behind him there was always the looming bulk of the shark, getting closer with every desperate turn.

Once again, it was a relief to wake up.

The dream was because he felt manipulated, Josh thought, as he washed his face with water from the jug. It felt like there were shadowy, unseen figures controlling events in the background. The encounter with the Queen of the Fey might have been pure coincidence, but the goddess Mayad’s interference had been blatantly obvious. Josh was sure she was the one who had created the illusion which had allowed him to escape Varian’s gang the first time.

And then there was the deity of the marsh, with its ritual of human sacrifice. Someone or something had removed the don’t-touch-me spell from the cloak of invisibility and the shoes of water walking, in between the first time Josh had found them, and the second, when he had needed them to escape from Varian’s gang. It was as if something was watching him, and helping him. Whatever their motive, it was unlikely to be for his own benefit.

Or maybe he was just being paranoid. It wasn’t like he was anyone special or unique. He didn’t even have a unique class. That would have been the person who took the Demon class. Josh wondered what had happened to them, or to the Assassin who had arrived in the world at the same time he had.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He went down to breakfast in a sombre mood, but the company of the monks immediately cheered him up. They served him a hearty oat porridge, with cream and berries and honey, and asked him how his head was.

“My head?” Josh looked at them blankly.

“You were somewhat the worse for wear when you went to your bed,” said the young monk who had showed him to his room.

“I was?” He’d felt buzzed, but not badly drunk.

The monk smirked.

“You were singing.”

Oh crap. He hadn’t been singing Katy Perry again, had he?

“What was I singing?”

“It was a song about dancing. And sunshine in your pockets or words to that effect.”

Dancing? Sunshine in his pockets? Josh groaned and thunked his forehead on the table, to the intense amusement of the monks. He must have been singing Justin Timberlake’s Can’t Stop The Feeling. That wasn’t any better than Katy Perry.

What was the point in pretending to be a local when he was going around singing Earth songs all the time? He felt a cold shiver run up his spine as he remembered giving the Abbot the real details of the moth haunt, and how he had faked being Prince Rupern. He hadn’t intended to tell anyone that.

It could have been worse—he could have let slip that he was an outlander.

You can’t get drunk, Josh thought. Not even halfway buzzed. You could get yourself killed if you say the wrong thing.

The monks seemed to be decent people, and not stuffy either. They ribbed Josh about his lack of hangover—you’re young, just you wait until you’re older, one of them told him—and then moved on to discussing their plans for the day, laughing and joking with each other with a free and easy camaraderie that welcomed Josh instead of excluding him.

When Josh raised the subject of the library, a round-faced monk who had nerd written all over him immediately perked up and offered to show him. He introduced himself as Brother Ferno, and turned out to be one of those people who opened his mouth and stream of consciousness fell out, so Josh didn’t have to go into too much detail about his supposed field of study, for which he was grateful.

The library itself filled a whole room and, by Josh’s estimate, contained considerably more than a hundred books. Maybe that had been the biggest number that the chambermaid could imagine.

Josh had always been more of an online person than a book person, but in the absence of the internet, a library was the next best thing. The Priory had several bestiaries, a whole shelf of atlases that Josh itched to study to see how closely they hewed to the map from Spiralia, and some treatises on the theory of magic, which he also wouldn’t have minded checking out. Most of the books, however, focused on either history or religion. Josh scanned for anything on Mayad or druidic religion, but it all seemed related to Ciandar, the sun-god of Celespire, or the teachings of the Church of the Common Covenant, or the Paragon. He did see a history book about the Seven Heroes, which might give him clues as to whether they were outlanders or not.

He was waiting for Brother Ferno to pause for breath so he could ask to look at one of the atlases, when they were interrupted by an apologetic brother who said that Josh had been summoned to the inn by no less than two separate messengers—one from the priest, and one from the chaperone.

Josh was getting really fed up with the noble party. They seemed to have no idea just how high maintenance they were.

All the monks had expected him to leap immediately to obey, and he had the sudden, overwhelming temptation to dig his heels in and refuse, just to be contrary. But for all he knew they wanted him to tell them more stories, or give him more money.

Accordingly, within twenty minutes of receiving the message, he was knocking on the door to the room of the priest, who was apparently called Father Lomer.

It turned out that Father Lomer didn’t want to give Josh any money, or even employ him. Instead, in a patronising tone of voice, he instructed Josh in the behaviour that was expected of him, namely that he should not talk or gossip about anything he had heard or seen while in the presence of Lady Alianne. Josh assumed that must be the name of the noble girl the priest was accompanying.

Father Lomer ended this lecture by informing Josh that if he discovered the latter had been spreading tales, he would have him whipped.

He could do that? Besides, given that everyone appeared to know all about Lady Alianne’s affairs already, how would he even be able to tell?

Josh gritted his teeth against the anger and resentment rising inside him.

He said, tightly, “I have no interest whatsoever in Lady Alianne’s business!” then turned on his heel and walked out of the room, leaving Father Lomer spluttering in outrage behind him. The moment he reached the passageway, Josh felt a wash of ice rush down his back. Did nobles randomly go around ordering the lower classes to be whipped? Was that a real danger, or just empty rhetoric?

It was too late to change anything now. Josh stalked off to his second appointment, which was with Lady Paleyna, the chaperone.

Lady Paleyna, it appeared, had been given a whole suite, which consisted of a tiny sitting room, with two other doors leading from it. One door was firmly shut, but the other was open, and gave Josh a glimpse into Lady Paleyna’s bed chamber, which looked like a hurricane had hit it, because there were dresses strewn everywhere.

The maid who had opened the door was one of Lady Paleyna’s servants, and she was clutching a jewellery box.

“Oh,” she said distractedly. “It’s the young man from last night, my lady. Did you want to speak to him?”

Lady Paleyna moved into view through the door of the bed chamber. She was wearing a brown velvet dress with gold embroidery, and fastening an earring to her ear.

“Yes, tell him I will be there directly,” she said vaguely, even though Josh could see and hear her perfectly well. “I think the topaz after all. Don’t you agree?”

The maid looked at the jewellery box and fiddled with the clasp, which jerked unexpectedly. The lid flew open and a fortune in jewels scattered all over the floor.

Josh had been standing in the doorway, but now he stepped inside and closed the door, so that any random people passing by wouldn’t see all the valuables lying on the floor.

“Er…” he said. “Would you like me to help you pick them up?”

To his surprise, the maid said, huffing and puffing as she got on her hands and knees, “Oh, that’s very kind of you! If you wouldn’t mind!”

So Josh knelt beside her, and carefully picked up one piece at a time. He didn’t want to be accused of theft himself, so he kept his hands in clear sight, and the moment he found anything he put it immediately in the box. The maid beamed at him as she closed the lid on the last of the pieces, and thanked him breathlessly.

“My topaz,” Lady Paleyna called through the open door of the bedroom.

“Coming, my lady.”

“And the rose brooch.”

“Of course, my lady. I have the topaz here, but … oh … where is the rose brooch?”

Shit, Josh thought. Was this some kind of trick? Were they going to accuse him of stealing it?

“I’ll have another look on the floor,” he said.

“My lady, forgive me,” said the maid. “I don’t … perhaps I didn’t bring the rose brooch. I don’t recall seeing it since we set out…”

“Oh, but I particularly wanted it today!” Lady Paleyna sounded annoyed. “Don’t tell me you left it at home, Rellie!”

“Forgive me, my lady…”

“Is everything else there?”

Rellie raked through the jewellery box, counting under her breath.

“Yes, it’s all here, my lady. Except for the brooch. I am so sorry, my lady!”

By this point Josh was back on his hands and knees, peering under the furniture. There was, in fact, something that looked brooch-like lying beneath a side table behind the door. He reached for it. It was a made of very fine china or porcelain, in the shape of a rose, tinted with different shades of pink, and with little diamonds to represent dew drops.

“It’s okay,” he called, “I’ve found it.”

As he got to his feet, he suddenly realised he hadn’t needed to say anything at all. Both women had clearly assumed the maid hadn’t brought the brooch along in the first place. He could have pocketed it and walked away with no-one the wiser. The diamonds would be worth something at least. He could have sold it and been … well, if not rich, at least richer. Safe from starving, with a roof over his head.

Even as the thought flashed through his head, however, it was academic. These women were rich and annoying, but that didn’t mean it was okay to steal from them. He wasn’t starving, and he had a purse full of silver. He could do magic and make glowing feathers and probably tiny spell books.

He didn’t need to become a thief to survive. He would make a terrible thief anyway—he didn’t have the right instincts.

He handed the brooch over to the maid, who said, “Oh, here it is, my lady, how stupid of me!”

Lady Paleyna moved into the sitting room.

“I’ve decided not to wear it after all,” she said, and sat in one of the chairs by the fire. “It won’t go with the topaz.”

She looked over at Josh, and he realised just how large and brilliant her eyes were.

“De Haven isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Josh said. He remembered he was pretending to be a local. “Yes, my lady.”

She raised an eyebrow, and he realised he was expected to bow as well. He did so, the same way as the Abbot had last night. She looked amused, but not offended, although she didn’t offer him a seat.

“What did old Lomer have to say?” she asked.

Josh blinked in surprise, wondering how she knew about his visit to the pirest, and she smiled. She had dimples, he noticed, which only served to highlight the flawless cream of her cheeks.

“I heard him ordering a servant over to the Priory to fetch you earlier,” she said. “So I sent a messenger of my own.”

Which meant this interruption to Josh’s morning was the result of a battle of one-upmanship between two nobles. Not content with stealing his room, they had to resort to dragging him halfway across town simply because they didn’t like each other.

“He asked me not to say anything about Lady Alianne’s business,” Josh said, trying not to grit his teeth at the memory.

“And went about it in a very high-handed way, I’ll wager. Don’t mind him, my dear, he’s all bark but no bite.”

If so, that was a relief, but now he had to worry about what Lady Paleyne wanted.

“You seem like a clever young man,” Lady Paleyne mused, and her eyes flicked up and down him in a way that suggested she wasn’t cataloguing the strength of his intellect. “Where are you travelling after this?”

“Brackstone.”

She clapped her hands.

“Delightful! We will be staying there ourselves for a few days. It so happens I may have some tasks for you, if you would call on me once I am there.”

What did that mean?

“What sort of tasks?” Josh asked suspiciously.

“Nothing too onerous,” she said lightly. “Taking messages for me, escorting me to the market. Duties of that nature.”

That seemed too simple.

The door to the other half of the suite opened abruptly and Lady Alianne stood on the threshold. She gave Josh an incredulous, disgusted glance, while Lady Paleyne rose smoothly to her feet.

“Pally, what is he doing here? And in our rooms? At this time?”

“Paying us a morning call, my lady,” Lady Paleyne said.

“I was just going,” Josh said hastily. Lady Alianne ignored him, and Lady Paleyne gave him a warning glance, which implied he had committed some kind of social solecism, although he had no idea what.

“Is that respectable?” Lady Alianne really did have a shrill voice.

“At court,” Lady Paleyne said languidly, “it’s not only respectable, but expected.”

“Father Lomer will be here shortly, for morning prayer. I doubt he will be pleased to see all the world paying morning visits.”

Lady Paleyne’s dimple flashed again.

“Oh, I do hope so,” she murmured.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I will send the young man on his way, my lady.”

Lady Alianne didn’t reply, but marched back into her own bedchamber. Lady Paleyne came forward and offered Josh her hand, but not as if she wanted him to shake it—instead she held it with the palm down, her fingers dangling.

Josh had a moment of pure panic. What was he supposed to do? He took her hand uncertainly, which felt small in his own. Then scenes from various period dramas flashed through his head, and it clicked. He was supposed to bow over it or something. Oh wait, no, was he supposed to kiss it? He could feel his ears getting hot, and it didn’t help that she could somehow see his internal dilemma and was visibly repressing a smile.

He compromised by bowing. He had no idea how you were actually supposed to kiss a lady’s hand. Was it meant to be an actual kiss, with your lips pressed against it? It seemed weirdly intrusive.

“I will see you in Brackstone,” Lady Paleyne said. “This going to be so much fun!”

Not if I can help it. Josh backed out of the door, feeling as if he had removed himself from a tiger’s den.

Pretending to be a local was going to be a lot harder than he had originally thought.